There’s no denying that inclusiveness has become the
watchword of the day. But how can we measure how
inclusive an employer is? This has been a very difficult
question to answer.
As an HR professional, you know there are multiple types of
lists recognizing the “best employers” in a variety of categories –
be they sector, industry, size, etc. Your own employer may be on
one of these lists; you might have even been tasked with applying
to get your employer there.
The lists can be very useful: we use them as marketing tools
for recruitment, for our brand image and to enhance the public
perception of our organizations. Further, they play an important
role in allowing organizations to be recognized for their
good work. However, the sheer number of “best employer” lists
published every year, along with the fact that some of them contradict
each other, can lead you to wonder: how accurate can
these lists be?
While some of the lists have a clear and transparent methodology,
not all lists are created equal. When one starts to delve a
little deeper into the rigour of how employers are chosen to be
on some of the lists, questions arise about the precision or evidence
to back up who gets on the list and who doesn’t.
feature
While there are lists of best employers for employee engagement,
diversity, newcomers, etc., there was no index in Canada
that provided a true measure of how inclusive an organization
actually was – until now.
In 2016, the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion
(CCDI) has been piloting their new Inclusivity Index with employers
in Alberta. Using specific measurable criteria, the Index
distinguishes between the intent of organizational diversity and
inclusion plans and leadership commitment, and the actual experience
of employees in the workplace. This index eliminates
any subjective guesswork in assessing how inclusive a workplace
is, ranking each employer based on qualitative and quantitative
research with a score that reflects its true inclusivity.
The Inclusivity Index was developed using the internationally
respected Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks as
the primary guideline for questions and scoring. To ensure that
a wide range of inclusion perspectives were incorporated, the
developers also consulted several renowned inclusivity indexes
such as the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality
Index (which considers LGBT inclusion in organizations), the
Eskemar/Shutterstock.com
Continued on page 25
IF AN EMPLOYER SAYS THEY HAVE A DIVERSITY STRATEGY, AND
ONLY 10 PER CENT OF EMPLOYEES KNOW ABOUT IT, THAT’S AN
INDICATION THAT THERE’S ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT IN THE
EMPLOYERS’ COMMUNICATIONS AND STRATEGY EXECUTION.
HRPATODAY.CA ❚ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2016 ❚ 23
